The same is true of Ubuntu and the Multiverse. You can CHOOSE to run pay software, the same as Android. I can run a commercial server daemon on pure, fully open Linux. Does that cease to be Linux? No.

It's a matter of what's meant by "Linux". Everyone used to mean "GNU/Linux" when they said simply "Linux". Android isn't GNU/Linux. There's no GNU in it - they stripped out what they could and rewrote from scratch what they couldn't. It's Apache/BSD/Linux.

So no, Android is not "Linux" by the definition of what everyone - before Android came along - would call Linux.

He didn't call it a linux desktop; he called it "the linux desktop dream come true"

It's not "Linux" as most people know it. There's a reason Richard Stallman was always bothered by people referring to the OS underlying Debian, Red Hat, Ubuntu and the countless other distributions as "Linux"; it ignores the fact that the vast majority of what makes it tick is the GNU userland.

Android does not have a GNU userland. In fact, they rewrote nearly all of it precisely to avoid it.

Android is an Apache/Linux desktop. It's only vaguely related to what everyone used to refer to as "Linux" or properly GNU/Linux.

Any contract lawyer would read over it and tell you what the holes are for a few hundred bucks. It's no big deal.

Since when is a few hundred bucks no big deal? For that matter, since when was it acceptable that a contract can only be understood by hiring a lawyer for a few hundred bucks? You're saying it yourself: the wording in the contract is so strangely constructed, that only a lawyer could understand it.

There's no reason NOT to go to a lawyer if you're considering signing something like this. It happens every day.

Well, apart from the several hundred bucks. If that happens every day, that's $50-100k a year, I guess. Good for the lawyers, bad for employees. The thing is, 364 days of the year you get a contract with normal termination clauses, but 1 of them has a dick clause. Do we pay a lawyer tax to insure ourselves against this, or do we assume that the courts will see it for what it is?

It just so happens that this guy decided to cut corners, got burned, and then whined about it publicly.

I fail to see how not spending a large sum on lawyers is cutting corners. People often don't use lawyers. it happens every day.

So, I guess you spend several hundred bucks on a lawyer every time you get a new job or receive stock or options?

It seems a large number of people here think that it is, though. Idiocy, or trolls. Do people really have so little sympathy? Contracts are intended to be a fair, bindings agreement between two parties. There are countless examples of unfair or weasel worded contracts failing in court, but apparently that would be news to some. What about loan sharks? What if someone snuck in a paragraph of mind bending legalize which amounted to "we can kill you"?

Oh, of course, they should have read the contract, and in case it was too confusing, they should have hired a really expensive lawyer to read it for them.

Bullshit. While I have diminished sympathy for Lee for not double and triple checking his termination clause, I do not have none. I also suspect, as pointed out in another comment here, that Skype should be liable for a lot of taxes by effectively buying back his options for nothing rather than their grant price. This probably still represents a net win for Skype, but at least then it's not "free" for them to exercise this clause.

In any case, it's still a particularly nasty thing for Skype to have done. Options generally have a "30 day" clause so you're not screwed in case of termination. This is supposed to add potential value to the options: you don't constantly run the risk of losing them all at the whim of the company. Skype effectively has a termination clause which takes away all your options any time they want. The difference is huge: I currently work on the assumption that my options are "safe" and I don't have to worry about them vs termination. My employer has written their options clauses to effectively say "we cannot be a dick - we are bound to allow you a grace period". Skype didn't. Their employees must treat options as directly bound to their employment, and if they're working under an "at will" contract, they can be gone in an instant. Skype took away a vast amount of value in their options due to the buy-back clause.